Injuries disrupted our plans: Dravid

Bengaluru, August 29

India had locked their No. 4 and No. 5 slots for the ODI World Cup almost 18 months ago but injuries to three batters in quick succession threw a spanner in their works, coach Rahul Dravid said. Dravid said that injuries to Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant forced the team management to try out other players in the middle-order. “The No. 4 and 5 spots are discussed a lot and gives the impression that we didn’t have clarity about who was going to be there. I could have told you 18 months ago who the three candidates for the two spots were,” Dravid said.

“It was always between Shreyas, KL and Rishabh. There was no doubt. It’s unfortunate that all three had injuries in the space of two months. What are the odds of that happening, all three guys had to go under the knife. So, you have to react, put other people in those positions,” he added.

Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna made a comeback after long injury layoffs and the coach is delighted to have more fast bowling options at his disposal. “It’s great to have them back and see them bowling well. Jasprit is someone we have missed a lot. We will ease him into it slowly. Ireland was a good opportunity to ease him in. Now we have a whole month to build that up before the World Cup,” he said. — PTI

High-risk game

Rohit Sharma traded caution with aggression to add a different dimension to his batting and the Indian skipper is happy with the results. At the end of the 2019 World Cup, Rohit had scored 27 hundreds, but in the last four years he could add only three more centuries to his tally. “I wanted to take more risks, which is why my numbers are slightly different now,” Rohit said. “My (ODI) strike-rate (during this period) has increased but the average has dipped a bit,” he added. Rohit is the only player to have scored three double-hundreds but his last 150-plus knock came in 2019. “My career strike-rate is around 90 (89.97) but in the past couple of years it has been around 105-110. So somewhere I had to compromise. It is not possible to have a 55 average and a 110 strike-rate,” he added.